he was locked inside a three-inch tall ivory cage
suspended by a hook that wrapped around a bulletin pin on a blue-felt board above my bed
he sat perched on the small crisscrossed base
vertical bars stretched around his oily body
from top
to bottom
a lone horizontal bar circled the cage closing in
around his skinny neck
sometimes
i saw the bars breath
a dome ribcage encasing the beating wings of a blue and yellow paper bird
when paper crane grew lonely
i would pull him out unfold his body use the creases as a map and try to remember
how to fold him back
some days
i stared too long
i became
that peaceful piece of paper in the shape of a bird
locked inside an ivory cage
wanting to escape